Invention and use of devices to aid in food production is known to the public. Currently available is a whole array of automated mixing, flattening, and cooking devices designed to simplify the production process of flat dough products such as tortillas, puri, papadam and chapati.
Commonly known mixing devices include beaters, blenders, and food processors. While these devices are capable of mixing together a wide variety of various ingredients, they are often incapable of appropriately mixing and kneading ingredients in the fashion necessary to produce dough. To fulfill this need, several special mixing devices are designed specifically to produce dough.
One such dough mixer is detailed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,630,930 by Samuel O. Seiling in 1986. This invention mixes the desired ingredients at a high rate of speed in a first chamber. The blending of ingredients is performed by a helical shaped agitator without a central shaft which rotates to force the mix toward one end of the chamber. A common hatchway between the chambers is opened and the agitator spirals to force the mix toward one end of the chamber. A common hatchway between the chambers is opened and the agitator spirals to force the mix through the opening into the second chamber for further development of the mix. After the completion of the developing cycle, the fully prepared dough is exhausted from the chamber by two rotating roller bars which substantially pulls the entire mass from the chamber leaving limited waste behind. Each segment of the cycle is performed continuously so that a new fully developed dough batch is readied every one-half cycle time. U.S. Pat. No. 4,504,152 to Moller et al. in 1985 and U.S. Pat. No. 4,465,700 to Kenneth Ball in 1984 detail similar dough mixing devices.
While these devices are convenient for mixing dough ingredients, and are a substantial improvement over manual kneading, they are limited to merely mixing ingredients, and thereby still require the user to manually flatten the dough with a rolling pin or the like. Since this flattening process can be rather time consuming and strenuous, several dough flatteners have been invented.
An example of a flattening device is detailed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,806,090 issued to Patrick Finlay in 1989. This device comprises a turntable defining a planar surface and a conical roller means adapted to cooperate with the turntable and define a rolling line in the region of the roller close to the planar surface. The turntable is rotatable to permit effective movement between the rolling line and the turntable. The apparatus further includes a means to cause the roller and turntable to move from a relative spaced apart position to an operative position with a reduced spacing for a predetermined operational period of time.
Other flattening device embodiments include U.S. Pat. No. 4,683,813 issued to George Schultz in 1985, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,972,672 issued to Thomas Luke in 1976. Schultz' device flattens portions of dough by pressing them between a rotatable disc and a press plate, while Luke's invention flattens dough portions by means of a band that passes through two or three pulleys, thereby squeezing the dough between the pulleys.
While these, and other similar devices can effectively flatten dough, they often have several disadvantages. First of all, these devices can often only accommodate small dough portions for buns or the like, and cannot flatten a portion large enough to be formed into larger products, such as tortillas. In addition, many of these devices do not include means for adjusting the thickness of the flattened dough. Thus, all dough products to be flattened must be of a singular thickness, which is not always desirable in the production of several different products. And finally, all such flatteners are limited in that they are capable only of flattening pre-kneaded dough. As such, while these devices effectively eliminate the need for manual rolling-pin flattening, they still require that the user manually knead the dough ingredients before employing the use of the flattener.
To remedy the lack of device capability and capitalize on the advantages of both mixing devices and flatteners, Minoru Kageyama et al. introduced an apparatus capable of both mixing ingredients and flattening the resulting dough into a single sheet in U.S. Pat. No. 5,272,962 issued in 1993. In this device, the dough ingredients are mixed with particles of ice, such that the particles of ice do not melt, thereby making a dough mixture. This mixture is then pressed from the machine, onto a conveyor belt and formed into a continuos belt-like dough mixture having a uniform width and thickness. When the ice particles are melted, the dough mixture is hydrated and stretched so that a continuos sheet of dough having a gluten network is provided. However, a substantial disadvantage of this apparatus is that again the thickness of the flattened dough cannot be adjusted, thereby necessitating that all dough products be of the same thickness. In addition, unless the dough is to be made into a product requiring long sheets of dough, such as some pizza crusts or pastas, the resulting sheet of dough must be reshaped and additionally flattened or thickened in accordance with its particular manifestation.
The invention of simultaneous flattening and baking devices has eliminated the need for these flatteners in the production of tortillas and the like, as they accept a ball of dough. One such device, issued in U.S. Pat. No. 3,880,064 to Maria Navar Martinez in 1975, functions similarly to commonly used waffle irons and the like. This invention allows dough balls to be placed on an electrically heated base plate. A lid plate is hinged to the base plate and includes an extending handle bar which serves as a lever in raising and lowering the lid plate to disengage or engage with the base plate. As downward pressure is applied to the lid plate, the dough ball is flattened between the two plates. The two plates are held together until the desired cooking of the flattened dough is achieved. This invention is especially designed to flatten and cook tortillas, crepes and wafers.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,281,025 issued to John Longenecker in 1981 details a method for shaping and precooking tortilla dough that allows a portion of dough to be inserted into a region between the arcuate outer surface of a heated rotatable drum and the arcuate surface of a heated compression plate. The plate is pivotally mounted and swung into position parallel to the surface of the drum to compress the dough while the drum is in a stop-phase of step motion. Thereafter, the plate is swung out of position and the dram is then rotated to cause the compressed dough to pass under the pivotally fixed end of the plate and out of the region.
Another device that allows for simultaneous flattening and cooking of dough portions is detailed by Robert Escamilla et al. in U.S. Pat. No. 5,095,813 in 1992. This invention includes a pair of cooperating heating and pressing plates that are mounted between vertical side frames of a supporting frame structure. The one heating and pressing unit is fixedly mounted at an angle to the horizontal sufficient to insure the gravitational discharge of the baked tortilla. The movable plate is shifted by a manually operable cam.
These and other like devices provide a convenient means for shaping, flattening and cooking tortillas and other similar food products. However, many of these devices are limited in their capabilities. For example, the above mentioned devices are only able to produce one tortilla at a time. Thus, a new ball of dough cannot be placed in the device until the previous tortilla is completed. This is inconvenient for quick use, and especially undesirable in meal preparation, as it results in the initial tortillas being cold by the time the entire batch of dough has been shaped and cooked. In addition, these devices are not convenient for producing a large batch of dough, as the user must be present at all times to monitor the device, remove cooked products, and add new dough portions to the apparatus. And finally, these devices face drawbacks in that they are only capable of accepting pre-mixed dough, thus necessitating manual kneading of the dough prior to use.
Thus, for maximum ease and convenience, a user would have to employ the use of both a mixing device and a flattening/cooking device. Not only is this expensive and space ineffiecient, but by using two independent devices, the system of producing a food product is limited by the disadvantages of both devices.
The present invention allows all these functions to be accomplished through one integrated machine that provides all of the advantages and none of the disadvantages of the prior art. The present invention provides further related advantages as described in the summary below.